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The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

rferl.org

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Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#61

Post by HelloUsername »

dang wrote: post #54
infecto wrote: post #23

Lots of contention here around the narrative. The original link should be removed and replaced with the original source that has what’s seems to be accurate and different narratives for the pictures. The linked site seems to simply steal what is a pretty nice coverage of the archive. https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html

Thanks - we've switched the top link to that from https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/stalin-era-soviet-union-pic... . Submitters: " Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

As discussed on 03-jun-2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36174792 221 comments

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#62

Post by Finnucane »

usrnm wrote: post #18

Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.

The war, and also Stalin.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#63

Post by wl »

watwut wrote: post #52
wl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience as an American, most of the parades I'm personally familiar with are organized by local groups rather than the government. Maybe you can read some ideology into the American Legion marching with flags, but it's more an exercise in giving the local high school band a chance to march, the Shriners an excuse to break out their clown cars, and maybe the whole thing is an advertisement for the 4H or FFA f…

Military parades with actual soldiers in USA are organized by local groups rather then the government? Like commooooon.

I wasn’t talking about military parades.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#64

Post by pipes »

inglor_cz wrote: post #27
Jgoauh wrote: post #12

"It becomes evident that the parade was a carefully choreographed spectacle, designed to showcase the Soviet Union’s ideology and power to the world." Ah yes, everyone known that in a TRUE democracy parades are spontaneously occurring events, self organizing to show the country's weaknesses and the population's biases. Seriously tho, what does this mean, has anyone ever been to a parade and concluded it was neither c…

Ugh, how I hate this sort of relativization coming from people who never experienced an actual authoritarian system. By the age of 6, I was required to carry a standard paper lantern on the November 7th celebration of the Great October* Socialist Revolution, with my parents fully aware that presence and absence lists were maintained by the teachers, who would forward them to the school cadre bureaucrats keeping dossi…

Thanks for posting. The other term for it "what aboutism" (which given your background you are probably well aware of, but others here might not be).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Countering these arguments is exhausting.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#65

Post by parl_match »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #48

"According to Smith, after Manhoff’s wife died he was asked to check the home of a former official for valuable memorabilia." I wonder how much valuable memorabilia is just getting thrown away because no one thought to check for it. Here's your nudge to ask your older relatives about their memorabilia, and record conversations with them while they are still alive. If you want to put the info online somewhere to incre…

To be fair, most people aren't a diplomat to Russia. So it's good to check but maybe this was a much more advanced case.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#66

Post by Insimwytim »

IAmBroom wrote: post #5
aix1 wrote: post #3

As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union (during a later period), I found it really interesting to look at this photographs. One thing worth pointing out: Moscow was very different from the rest of the country. It had better housing and infrastructure, the shops were stocked far better than elsewhere in the country, it had more grandiose architecture and richer cultural life and so on. In many is ways it was the co…

So a Potemkin capital, as it were?

"Potemkin village" - a fake propaganda narrative, created by Saxony's embassy clerk Helbig. He conveniently told that story in Hamburg, a decade later after the trip (which he wasn't a part of).

Charles-Joseph de Ligne (who has been part of said journey) regarded such tales as preposterous.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#67

Post by throw-the-towel »

branon wrote: post #21
usrnm wrote: post #18

Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.

Ah, is that why... I noticed this too but assumed it was due to some communist ideal of gender equality leading to more women tradespeople, wishful thinking I guess

The poorer the country, the more women work in traditionally male fields. In Bolivia and in Peru, I was surprised to see many women working in construction and driving taxis.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#68

Post by throw-the-towel »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #42
usrnm wrote: post #18

Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.

It wasn't just hard manual work. IIRC, for decades the majority of doctors were women.

They still are! According to the WHO [0], in 2020 just under 71% of doctors in Russia were women.

[0] https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hlthres_137-of-ph...

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#69

Post by throwaway85825 »

parl_match wrote: post #65
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #48

"According to Smith, after Manhoff’s wife died he was asked to check the home of a former official for valuable memorabilia." I wonder how much valuable memorabilia is just getting thrown away because no one thought to check for it. Here's your nudge to ask your older relatives about their memorabilia, and record conversations with them while they are still alive. If you want to put the info online somewhere to incre…

To be fair, most people aren't a diplomat to Russia. So it's good to check but maybe this was a much more advanced case.

Further, gifts to government officials are the property of the government.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#70

Post by throwaway85825 »

usrnm wrote: post #18

Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.

You can get more labor out of people if you assume children take 0 time and cost $0.
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